So Thats a Hypocrite

President Ronald Regan once said that politics was supposed to be the world’s second oldest profession but he quickly realized that it bore a very close resemblance to the first. Truer words have never been spoken. If you haven’t listened to the news or read the paper lately, you are probably unaware of the growing tension developing between the executive branch of government and Congress. Events over the weekend have prompted leaders from both sides of the isle to express their deep and growing concerns over the increasingly aggressive executive branch, breaching the constitutional separation of powers and further eroding its system of checks and balances.

If you read this blog regularly you know that I am very concerned about this President, our government and the overall direction of the country. You know that I am troubled by the Presidents unrelenting assault on the Constitution and the protections offered under the Bill of Rights. You know that I am also very critical of Congress because it either fails to recognize the dangerously growing abuses of the executive branch or it simply lacks the political will to oppose him. Lou Dobbs was right on the money when he stated in a recent editorial that, “never before in our country’s history have both the President and Congress been so out of touch with most Americans. Never before have so few elected officials and corporate leaders been less willing to commit to the national interest. And never before has our nation’s largest constituent group, some 200 million middle class Americans, been without representation in our nation’s capital.” That really kind of sums it up for me, our wonderfully apathetic, ineffective and self-serving government.

You can imagine my surprise when I heard the news about a growing and united front that was forming in Washington, as members of Congress finally sought to check the alarmingly fast growing and intrusive power of the executive branch. So what was the proverbial straw? What finally caused members of the congressional leadership to cry foul? Was it the information uncovered while investigating the NSA scandal or a certain queasiness that developed during General Hayden’s CIA testimony? Was it the Presidents daily disregard for the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure and generalized warrants? Could it be the CIA torture camps operated without congressional oversight, or a developing guilt with regard to all the prisoners held in those camps whose human rights are ignored and whose legal rights are denied. Could it be that Members of Congress finally recognize the dangerous precedent that would be set by allowing our military to be deployed on domestic soil? Or could they just be plain tired of a President who feels he is empowered to break the law or circumvent the constitution whenever he sees fit? Nope. Then what did cause this newly united congressional leadership to so publicly express such grave concerns and outrage over the executive branch’s newest unprecedented intrusion?

It was the FBI and a Congressman named William Jefferson. Representative Jefferson, a Democrat from Louisiana, is under federal investigation for allegedly accepting bribes. It seems that the Justice Department has Mr. Jefferson on videotape accepting $100,000 in bribe money and a search of Jefferson’s home uncovered $90,000 of the cash hidden in Jefferson’s freezer. Earlier this month, a Kentucky businessman by the name of Vernon Jackson pled guilty in federal court, to giving Jefferson $400,000 in bribe money to help him promote a high-tech business venture in Africa. Last weekend the FBI took the unprecedented step of raiding Jefferson’s D.C. office, removing documents and other potentially incriminating evidence. Talk about circling the wagons! Congressional leaders immediately condemned the move as an unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of executive power. In a joint statement released on Wednesday, Republican House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and House Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called for an immediate return of all documents that were unconstitutionally seized in the raid. The sharply worded statement called last Saturdays FBI search a clear violation of the principal of separation of powers and of the speech and debate clause in Article 1 Section 6 of the Constitution. Speaker Hastert was vociferous in his comments expressing alarm at the raid, “these actions of the Justice Department in seeking and executing this warrant raise important Constitutional issues that go well beyond the specifics of this case. Insofar as I am aware, since the founding of our Republic 219 years ago, the Justice Department has never found it necessary to do what it did on Saturday night, crossing this Separation of Powers line, in order to successfully prosecute corruption by Members of Congress. Nothing I have learned in the last 48 hours leads me to believe that there was any necessity to change the precedent established over those 219 years.” House Minority Leader Pelosi said in a statement that “members of Congress must obey the law and fully cooperate with any criminal investigation but that Justice Department investigations must be conducted in accordance with Constitutional protections and historical precedent.” Here is one for you, even former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called Saturday nights raid, “the most blatant violation of the Constitutional Separation of Powers in his lifetime.” The issue for many revolves around the speech or debate clause I previously mentioned. This clause was intended to shield lawmakers from intimidation by the executive branch, though many legal experts feel that the FBI raid was an intimidating tactic never before used against the legislative branch.

Serious constitutional issues aside, do you recognize the hypocrisy of it all? It’s ok with Congress for the President to violate the Constitution when it only affects average American citizens. Congress is equally culpable when the President illegally wiretap us, eliminates our protections from unreasonable search and seizure and diminishes the governments need to demonstrate probable cause. It has enabled the administration to effectively dilute the power of the Judiciary and our right for judicial review. It passed laws making torture illegal, only to turn a blind eye as the President defiantly declared that he was not bound these laws. To date, Congress has taken a back seat in every instance permitting this President to break or circumvent the law and act with impunity. Maybe that’s why Congressional public approval rates are the only ones that are lower than the Presidents. The sad irony is that given all of these issues, all of these abuses, Congress was finally compelled to act, not in order to protect our rights, but in order to protect its own self serving interests. They are not interested in protecting our rights and liberties…they are interested in protecting their own. Congress had no problem allowing the President to circumvent the law and distort the constitution as long as it did not affect them. Is it a coincidence that immediately after the FBI fired this shot directly across the congressional bow, Congress has suddenly become so concerned about the Constitution, the protection of rights and the rule of law? That it is suddenly so concerned about protecting the provisions of Constitution that it is willing to ignore the fact that Congressman Jefferson is in all probability a criminal. They will have you believe that this issue is bigger than Representative Jefferson and his potential legal issues. They will cite many of the concerns I have just outlined in this entry. What they won’t do is address their hypocrisy. They won’t tell you why they are more interested in the rights of a criminal than protecting us from one. They won’t tell you why it was ok for dangerous precedents to be set limiting our personal rights and freedoms, while refusing to allow similar precedents to be established with regard to their own protections under the Constitution. They might not address these issues...but we can! Do not allow the actions of our elected officials to effect your rights to participate in the political process. No, they may not ever honestly address their hypocrisy, but come November we can address it for them. I encourage you to become informed, to become engaged and to vote your conscience. I firmly believe that every vote counts and that our vote represents the quintessential political capital. I encourage you to spend this currency wisely because there is a politician on every street corner gladly willing to accept it. Remember, politics is the world’s oldest profession.

Think about it.

An Extraordinary Rendition

Extraordinary rendition as a term actually sounds fairly quaint. However, you will see that the government's policy of rendition is in a class all by itself and can hardly be considered benign. Have you ever heard of a man named Khaled El-Masri? If your answer is no, you can be sure that there is a very good reason. Mr. El-Masri is a Kuwaiti born, German citizen. Born in 1963 to Lebanese parents, Mr. El-Masri is a loving husband and father of five. In Germany Mr. El-Masri is a carpenter by trade, but had been working as a car salesman near Neu Ulm. For those who don't know, here's the abbreviated scoop on Mr. El-Masri:

On December 31, 2003, Khaled El-Masri was traveling to Skopje, Macedonia for a holiday. Upon entering Macedonia, El-Masri was detained at the behest of the U.S. government by Macedonian officials, his passport confiscated and he was forcibly taken to a nearby hotel. He remained in that hotel for 23 days. During that time he was never permitted to leave the room as he was continually interrogated about his associates, his mosque, his activities and about meetings that never took place. On the 23rd day, a group of Macedonian men entered the room and forced him to make a video. He was instructed to state that had been treated well and would be flying back to Germany soon. He was then handcuffed, blindfolded and placed into a car. He was taken to a place near the local airport, brutally beaten, stripped of his clothes and forcibly sodomized with a foreign object. The men placed a diaper on El-Masri and clothed him in a jumpsuit, before drugging him and flying him to Afghanistan. There he was held in a notoriously brutal CIA run prison known as the "Salt Pit" where he suffered continual beatings to the head, the soles of his feet and the small of his back. He was held in a small, dank cell without a bed and only a small bottle of putrid water to sustain him. He remained in solitary confinement for 4 months! During this time he was photographed and fingerprinted. Blood and urine samples were forcibly drawn while his requests to meet with German Government officials ignored. El-Masri engaged in a hunger strike for 37 days until a tube was forced down his throat and he was force-fed. He was finally able to meet with two of his American captors, one identified as the prison director, while the other held a higher rank. He was warned that as a condition of his release, he was never to speak of what happened to him. On May 28, 2004, El-Masri was pulled from his cell, blindfolded, handcuffed and placed into a waiting car. He was flown to Albania, where his possessions were returned and he was released.

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia recently denied El-Masri access to legal justice, because according to the court, the simple fact of holding the proceedings would jeopardize state secrets. What! In his opinion, Judge T.S. Ellis III held that the CIA properly invoked the state secrets defense to dismiss El-Masri's lawsuit. The court acknowledged that, "if El-Masri's allegations are true or essentially true, then all fair minded people, including those who believe that state secrets must be protected and that this lawsuit cannot proceed, and that renditions are a necessary step to take in this war, must also agree that El-Masri has suffered injuries as a result of our country's mistake and deserves a remedy." Unbelievable! The CIA actions violated U.S. Federal law, International law, and universal human rights when they abducted El-Masri, beat him, humiliated him, sodomized him with a foreign object, drugged him and transported him to a secret prison in Afghanistan. Five months later, he was transported to Albania and deposited on a remote hilltop without explanation or charges ever being filed. This court essentially gave the government a green light to continue their horrific and illegal practices without fear of reprisal. The courts decision essentially shields the CIA and other government officials from scrutiny or accountability. The man was kidnapped and held against his will, sodomized and tortured for 5 months, and the government denies El-Masri his day in court on the grounds that the administration can't disclose facts of a case that the rest of the world already knows. Ask yourself why you haven't heard about this? Ask yourself why you don't know about Mr. El-Masri? I wonder incredulously how our government can criticize other nations such as China, North Korea, Iraq or Iran, when it grossly violates human rights in this illegal and heinous manner. Our government is allowing these abuses to take place in the name of freedom and liberty...are you kidding me? These acts of barbarism are unconscionable and this administration must be held accountable. As you ponder this, I have a question for you. Do you feel that the odds are greater that you will be effected by an act of terrorisim on American soil, or that your civil rights will be violated in some way by your own government? I know my answer, what's yours?

Think about it....We really need to think about it.

Rage Against the Machine

For the past week I have tried to provide you with examples of governmental abuse of power. Mostly, I have criticized the President because these abuses are happening on his watch. However, I must reiterate that efforts to remake the government go well beyond the executive branch, as it is clear that Congress is complicit as well. Here is a small example of how it all works; of how our government keeps all of us fat, dumb and happy.

We all know about the NSA wiretapping scandal and about the Bush administration’s not so secret war against the Constitution. We know about the Patriot Act and how it is keeping us safe from terrorist…how it is protecting our national security. Oh how ignorance is bliss. In March of this year, President Bush signed legislation, reauthorizing the Patriot Act. However, did you know that the document Bush signed included an addendum stating that the President did not feel obliged to obey certain requirements of the Act? Specifically, the President stated that he did not feel compelled to notify Congress as to how the FBI was using the Patriot Act’s expanded police powers. So here we have the President of the United States, reauthorizing the Patriot Act and calling it “a piece of legislation that’s vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people”, simultaneously stating that he was not obliged to follow its requirements. Wow! I bet you didn’t even know that one did you? The President was not happy with some of the new provisions intended to make sure that the FBI did not abuse their special terrorism-related powers to search homes and secretly seize documents. You see, shortly after the conclusion of the official signing ceremony, the White House quietly released a “signing statement” outlining the Presidents interpretation of the new law. In the statement, Mr. Bush said that he did not consider himself to be bound by the new law requiring he tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used. It continued by stating that the President felt he could withhold any information that he deemed dangerous to national security, the deliberative process of the executive, to ongoing foreign relations or the performance of the executive’s constitutional duties. This is a perfect example of President Bush erroneously claiming his constitutional authority to bypass the law! When President Bush authorized the military to conduct electronic surveillance of Americans’ international phone calls and emails without obtaining warrants, Bush claimed that his wartime powers gave him the right to ignore the law. According to the Constitution only Congress has the power to declare war, which by the way it has yet to do, so where did the President get these wartime powers? The same can be said for the illegal actions of the NSA, CIA and the FBI. When Congress passed a law forbidding the torture of any detainee in U.S. custody, the President signed the bill with great public fanfare, only to quietly release another “signing statement” claiming executive authority to bypass the law if he believed using harsh interrogation techniques was necessary to protect national security. The President’s outrageous claims of power, specifically the power to ignore federal law, is in direct violation of the Constitution which clearly charges Congress with the power to write laws and the President the duty to “faithfully execute” the laws passed by Congress.

The scary part is that Congress is not willing to do anything to curb these abuses. In fact, Congress is currently attempting to pass a new law called the “Terrorist Surveillance Act of 2006,” which would authorize the warrantless wiretapping of American residents. The bill allows for the NSA to monitor telephone and email communications without requiring judicial review or court approval. In other words, it would roll back the protections granted all Americans under the FISA. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) is a post-Watergate law, which was specifically enacted to restrict the President’s ability to spy on Americans under the guise of national security! Prior to the Watergate scandal and before the passage of FISA, a Congressional committee called the Church Committee was convened to investigate the NSA and allegations of its illegal domestic surveillance program. The Church Committee discovered that the NSA was in fact monitoring millions of international telegrams and that the agency maintained files on approximately 75,000 U.S. citizens! The findings of the Church Committee led to the establishment FISA, requiring the government to establish probable cause, receive judicial review and obtain a specific warrant before any American could be wiretapped. The Terrorist Act of 2006 would potentially authorize indefinite wiretaps and the electronic communications monitoring of Americans in this country. It would do so without the need for an independent court to determine if the American in question has actually done anything wrong. Under the proposed Act, communications could be monitored for 45 days, giving the administration the option of seeking a court order or notifying a Congressional subcommittee. The subcommittee is not a court and would not have the power to grant or deny approval…how convenient. Under the proposed legislation, court approval for wiretapping would no longer be mandatory as a matter of law and the Fourth Amendment be dammed. Gone is the need for probable cause, as government agents will be allowed to initiate surveillance based on mere suspicion, unencumbered by the need for judicial review or approval. What I find most disturbing is that Congress is willing to pass this legislation without first receiving the basic information it is entitled to regarding the current NSA scandal. I guess that’s good given how the Terrorist Act of 2006 greatly diminishes the need for Congressional oversight. Rather that get to the heart of the issue, as was the case with the Church Committee, Congress would rather move forward with flawed legislation designed to provide political cover for lawmakers through plausible deniability. How can Congress pass legislation such as this, if it does not have a clear understanding of what the administration is doing and why the current law is inadequate? A strong Congress should not legislate anything before it gets the information it needs and it should force the President to explain why he feels that it is necessary to change the current law. This legislation will not only erode the civil liberties of U.S. citizens by eliminating the checks and balances on domestic surveillance. It will also eliminate the protections granted under FISA, making judicial review optional; it will significantly increase the power of the President over Congress and the Supreme Court and it clearly violates the Fourth Amendment’s requirement for probable cause and its protection against the issuance of general warrants. If that isn’t enough, the bill would impose harsh penalties on “whistleblowers”. Anyone making “unauthorized disclosures” about the “terrorist surveillance program” will be fined up to $1,000,000 and imprisoned for up to 15 years. You know if it were not for whistleblowers, neither Congress nor the American people would be aware of the NSA’s illegal surveillance programs now “under investigation”.

The proposed legislation eliminates the need for judicial review and the issuance of specific warrants, waters down the definition of probable cause and allows for the electronic surveillance of American citizens. It imposes strict penalties for “whistleblowers” while offering retroactive protection for lawmakers who prefer to remain ignorant as to specifics of this administrations illegal actions based on the notion of plausible deniability. The proposed law would allow for all of this even though the Constitution clearly does not. I can’t help but to recall the Presidents words as he signed the reauthorization of the Patriot Act? That line about how it is vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people. The President may feel that he is protecting us from al Qaeda but I wonder who is protecting the rest of us from him?

Think about it.